SCIM-C is a historical thinking model developed by David Hicks. This model helps students to start thinking like historians, and is a good framework for historical inquiry in the classroom. Please do not feel you need to read this entire page. This page is provided as a resource if you feel at a loss for a specific step. Consider the guiding questions as just that; do not feel that you need to answer every question for every artifact, but make sure you are thorough.
Summarizing:
Summarizing is the first phase of the SCIM-C strategy and begins with having you quickly examine the documentary aspects of the text or image, in order to find any information or evidence that is explicitly available from the source. Within this phase you should attempt to identify the source's subject, author, purpose, and audience, as well as the type of historical source (e.g., letter, photograph, cartoon). In addition, you should look for key facts, dates, ideas, opinions, and perspectives that appear to be immediately apparent within the source. The four analyzing questions associated with the summarizing phase include:
What type of historical document is the source?
What specific information, details and/or perspectives does the source provide?
What is the subject and/or purpose of the source?
Who was the author and/or audience of the source?
Contextualizing:
Contextualizing begins the process of spending more time with the source in order to explore the authentic aspects of the source in terms of locating the source within time and space. The teacher needs to emphasize that it is important to recognize and understand that archaic words and/or images from the period may be in a source. These words and/or images may no longer be used today or they may be used differently, and these differences should be noted and defined. In addition, the meanings, values, habits, and/or customs of the period may be very different from those today. Ultimately, you must be careful to avoid treating the source as a product of today as they pursue your guiding historical question. The four analyzing questions associated with the contextualizing phase include:
When and where was the source produced?
Why was the source produced?
What was happening within the immediate and broader context at the time the source was produced?
What summarizing information can place the source in time and place?
Inferring:
Inferring is designed to provide you with the opportunity to revisit initial facts gleaned from the source and to begin to read subtexts and make inferences based upon a developing understanding of the context and continued examination of the source. In answering an historical question and working with the primary source, sometimes the evidence is not explicitly stated or obvious in the source, but rather, the evidence is hinted at within the source and needs to be drawn out. The inferring stage provides room for you to explore the source and examine the source's perspective in the light of the historical questions being asked. The four analyzing questions associated with the inferring phase include:
What is suggested by the source?
What interpretations may be drawn from the source?
What perspectives or points of view are indicated in the source?
What inferences may be drawn from absences or omissions in the source?
Monitoring:
Monitoring is the capstone stage in examining individual sources. Here you are expected to question and reflect upon your initial assumptions in terms of the overall focus on the historical questions being studied. This reflective monitoring is essential in making sure that you have asked the key questions from each of the previous phases. Such a process requires you to examine the credibility and usefulness or significance of the source in answering the historical questions at hand.
Ultimately, monitoring is about reflection, reflection upon the use of the SCIM-C strategy and reflection upon the source itself. The SCIM-C strategy is recursive in nature and thus revisiting phases and questions is essential as one begins to create an historical interpretation of a source in light of one's historical questions. The four analyzing questions associated with the monitoring phase include:
What additional evidence beyond the source is necessary to answer the historical question?
What ideas, images, or terms need further defining from the source?
How useful or significant is the source for its intended purpose in answering the historical question?
What questions from the previous stages need to be revisited in order to analyze the source satisfactorily?
Corroborating:
Corroborating only starts when you have analyzed a series of sources, and are ready to extend and deepen your analysis through comparing the evidence gleaned from each source in light of the guiding historical questions. What similarities and differences in ideas, information, and perspectives exist between the analyzed sources? You should also look for gaps in your evidence that may hinder your interpretations and the answering of your guiding historical questions. When they find contradictions between sources, they must investigate further, including the checking of the credibility of the source. Once the sources have been compared the you then begin to draw conclusions based upon the synthesis of the evidence, and can begin to develop your own conclusions and historical interpretation. The four analyzing questions associated with the corroborating phase include:
What similarities and differences between the sources exist?
What factors could account for these similarities and differences?
What conclusions can be drawn from the accumulated interpretations?
What additional information or sources are necessary to answer more fully the guiding historical question?
SCIM-C is a historical thinking model developed by David Hicks. This model helps students to start thinking like historians, and is a good framework for historical inquiry in the classroom. Please do not feel you need to read this entire page. This page is provided as a resource if you feel at a loss for a specific step. Consider the guiding questions as just that; do not feel that you need to answer every question for every artifact, but make sure you are thorough.
Summarizing:
Summarizing is the first phase of the SCIM-C strategy and begins with having you quickly examine the documentary aspects of the text or image, in order to find any information or evidence that is explicitly available from the source. Within this phase you should attempt to identify the source's subject, author, purpose, and audience, as well as the type of historical source (e.g., letter, photograph, cartoon). In addition, you should look for key facts, dates, ideas, opinions, and perspectives that appear to be immediately apparent within the source. The four analyzing questions associated with the summarizing phase include:
Contextualizing:
Contextualizing begins the process of spending more time with the source in order to explore the authentic aspects of the source in terms of locating the source within time and space. The teacher needs to emphasize that it is important to recognize and understand that archaic words and/or images from the period may be in a source. These words and/or images may no longer be used today or they may be used differently, and these differences should be noted and defined. In addition, the meanings, values, habits, and/or customs of the period may be very different from those today. Ultimately, you must be careful to avoid treating the source as a product of today as they pursue your guiding historical question. The four analyzing questions associated with the contextualizing phase include:
Inferring:
Inferring is designed to provide you with the opportunity to revisit initial facts gleaned from the source and to begin to read subtexts and make inferences based upon a developing understanding of the context and continued examination of the source. In answering an historical question and working with the primary source, sometimes the evidence is not explicitly stated or obvious in the source, but rather, the evidence is hinted at within the source and needs to be drawn out. The inferring stage provides room for you to explore the source and examine the source's perspective in the light of the historical questions being asked. The four analyzing questions associated with the inferring phase include:
Monitoring:
Monitoring is the capstone stage in examining individual sources. Here you are expected to question and reflect upon your initial assumptions in terms of the overall focus on the historical questions being studied. This reflective monitoring is essential in making sure that you have asked the key questions from each of the previous phases. Such a process requires you to examine the credibility and usefulness or significance of the source in answering the historical questions at hand.
Ultimately, monitoring is about reflection, reflection upon the use of the SCIM-C strategy and reflection upon the source itself. The SCIM-C strategy is recursive in nature and thus revisiting phases and questions is essential as one begins to create an historical interpretation of a source in light of one's historical questions. The four analyzing questions associated with the monitoring phase include:
Corroborating:
Corroborating only starts when you have analyzed a series of sources, and are ready to extend and deepen your analysis through comparing the evidence gleaned from each source in light of the guiding historical questions. What similarities and differences in ideas, information, and perspectives exist between the analyzed sources? You should also look for gaps in your evidence that may hinder your interpretations and the answering of your guiding historical questions. When they find contradictions between sources, they must investigate further, including the checking of the credibility of the source. Once the sources have been compared the you then begin to draw conclusions based upon the synthesis of the evidence, and can begin to develop your own conclusions and historical interpretation. The four analyzing questions associated with the corroborating phase include:
All materials from this page are adapted from: http://www.historicalinquiry.com/scim/index.cfm